


one day i’ll be fine with that

by Munks



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chapter 200 AU, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Minor Violence, Reincarnation, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-07 12:47:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munks/pseuds/Munks
Summary: Kanda breathes, speaks so quietly that Alma wonders if it’s just a trick of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He says, “On the day I died, I dreamt about you.”-Chapter 200 AU.





	one day i’ll be fine with that

**Author's Note:**

> i know it's been like ten years but i'm still upset about alma karma. check the end notes for extra warnings
> 
> n e ways i'll come back and edit this more later but i just.... can't keep looking at it... get it away from me....

In a dream, he builds a statue.

Day in and day out, when the dirt from her grave still clings to the hem of his clothes, he builds this monument of her. For her. He starts with all the belongings they used to cherish, no longer useful without her there to share them.

For the base: their bed frame. Snapped in half and broken down, for in this ten year dream he has not once felt a need to sleep. Next were the cupboards, the tables, the chairs; all from the home they meant to build together. Only the strongest memories to give her the sturdiest base.

For her frame he weaves together tree branches and lotus stems. With clay from the drying riverbeds where they had both passed, he moulds her skin. The crease behind her ears and the slope where her ribs contracted, he crafts mud to muscle and folds it over wooden bones.

Next he clothes her in lotus petals, sewn together stitch by stitch.

(Once, she had told him she didn’t want a wedding dress until after the war. Until after they were free and the world was at peace and they could finally move into their little home with their bed frame and those cupboards and tables and chairs.

They were so naïve back then, he thinks. Too lovestruck, too hopeful; blind to the inevitable.

To think they would ever see the end of this war. To think they would ever wed. Ridiculous. Pathetic. Childish. Resentment sticks to the back of his throat like bile he just cannot seem to swallow.

But.

He supposed he is glad he can finally give her her dress.)

The clothing alone takes him six days. Six weeks. Six years. By now he is starting to turn frail. His hands are shaking, eyes sunken-in. Still, he dreams. Still, he builds this monument of her. For her.

Her flaxen hair is made from goldenrod, plucked and bundled, until finally all there is left to do is to carve her face.

By now the world is darkening and it is getting so hard to breathe.

There he stands, at her base, chisel in hand. His determination feels visceral now that the monument is almost complete. Now that his task is almost at its end. Perhaps then, when it is done, and she is smiling down on him again, will he finally be able to rest in this ten year dream.

But as he stares up at her, he finds himself unable to remember quite how she looked at him. How her lips tilted when they kissed or the slope of her jaw when he cupped her cheeks. Did she smile? Was she the kind of person to grin at every little thing? Did she cry instead? What colour were her eyes?

His breath is dimming. Now, the dream is ending. He lays at the base of the statue of her, for her, surrounded by the scent of lotus flowers and thinks of how he should have held her. How he should have remembered.

 _“Hey,”_ Is that her voice?

 _“Hey,”_ Is that what she sounded like?

_… “Are you awake?”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bone cracks, mid break.

Alma is young, thrown against the wall when his leg bends at an odd angle. _They’re fighting again_ , cries a gaggle of researchers. _Why are they always fighting?_

The wall’s plaster crumbles under Alma’s weight. He recoils and bounces back, throwing himself at Kanda as they wrestle on the ground. All scrapes and bruises; rough and tumble boys is what Doctor Edgar used to call them. _Perhaps a bit too much emphasis on the rough_ is what Doctor Chang once quipped in passing.

The break in Alma’s leg has already mended itself as he claws at Kanda’s biceps. The ghost of pain is still there, tucked away in regrown bone. He feels Kanda snarl against his throat. Kanda twists in his grip; pins him to the ground. This time, it is Alma’s wrist that cracks.

Years later, as they are falling from the sky, Alma is still cracking under Kanda’s hold. His skin shatters like cheap porcelain as they plummet towards the earth, but this time Kanda cradles him in a way that makes him feel tenuous.

(It’s funny, really. The way Alma just can’t seem to keep himself together around Yuu, but at least this time they’re both falling apart.)

They burst through the gate, all streaks of white and gold, and it begins to crumble upon their impact. He hears the echo of Allen Walker’s voice just as they slam back to earth in a fury of sand and stone. There is nothing particularly romantic about their bodies crashing from the sky. Nothing beautiful like floating leaves or fallen stars. It is simply mass without pity; just brutal physics.

Once the dust settles and they are finally, _finally_ , truly alone, Alma finds himself folded in Kanda’s arms as the gate above them falls away. White glass slivers raining around them, combusting before it has the chance to harm either of them.

Whatever God is out there must know by now that they have long since suffered enough pain.

And, as they sit there with the last shards of the gate burning around them, Alma pretends that they represent the apologies he and Kanda were never truly given; sorries they deserved from the Order but were only gifted on behalf of Allen Walker.

They are seven thousand little sorrows, feather light and floating from the heavens.

When he looks up, Alma can only ponder how they fall from a place neither of them will never see.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes time.

Minutes and hours and days, all bleeding into a continuum until it is just the two of them: Alma and Kanda, curled together, finger bones neatly folded over one another, tucked away in the ruins of Matera.

Alma and Kanda, minute by minute, day by day. Alma and Kanda, alone, together, as they were always meant to be.

Later, when Alma’s skin is smoothed of its creases and his legs have woven themselves back together, they head north. The road they follow winds through hillsides, scaly and washed out from springtime rain. Alma trips over sheets of dried mud like a newborn foal and Kanda can't help but smirk at his dejected frown every time he picks him back up.

They steal clothes from a passing merchant whom they hail for a ride. Steal his horses and his money and the bag of dried jerky he’s carrying with him too. They rob him for all he’s worth. Leave him to die by the side of that same beaten road without a penny to his name.

Alma doesn’t look back; wind in his hair, lotus blossoms catching in the breeze around him. Kanda watches him from the corner of his eye as their horses gallop down the desolate road.

The carriage rumbles behind them, bouncing over slabs of rock and fussing under the mistreatment. Two wheel spokes snap in an hour: they abandon the damn thing altogether, just as they did the merchant and the Order and the war and their hopes and dreams and humanity. No more earthly ties to tether them down.

They reach the first town by nightfall. A quiet little thing, with wooden houses and stone walls. The clap of horse hooves echo too loudly through the sleeping streets.

Kanda pays for an inn with the merchant’s coins. The man at the counter eyes him suspiciously and bites one of the coppers between his crooked teeth. He shrugs, fishes out a rusted inn key and tosses it carelessly onto the counter with a hollow clink. Kanda scowls.

Outside, Alma is with the horses running his fingers through their knotted manes. He turns as Kanda approaches and for a moment neither of them say anything. They just stare at each other for a few seconds too many, under the cover of dark and empty streets, until Alma’s face splits into a toothy grin and Kanda looks away, scowl deepening.

They pay for a dinner of bread and olive oil at a tavern a few doors down. The merchant’s coin pouch drops sadly on the table and the sight of it gives Kanda an odd, unfamiliar twist in his stomach. He dips his bread until it is golden with oil and takes a bite of it, chewing slowly.

When Kanda mentions the merchant over their meal and there is a moment where Alma says nothing. He sets down his plate from where he had tilted it to, disgustingly enough, drink the rest of the olive oil collected at the bottom. And then he looks at Kanda for a long, long while.

His gaze is eerie, Kanda thinks. Dangerous. Although he’d never admit it, Kanda can feel the hair bristle on the back of his neck — feel his hand twitch for Mugen.

Alma blinks slowly. Just once. He says, “It’s us against the world now, Yuu.”

And, well. Kanda can't disagree with that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Echo and noise reverberate off of the high roof of the bathhouse.

White marble, white tiles, white petals from white flowers drooping wet from the steam.

 _It’s too hot for this_ , thinks Alma as the heat drifts up to his head, making him feel boggy and slow. Around him there are old men, nude and jolly as they sip colourful drinks from long-neck glasses and eat strange fruit off of silver platters.

One of them laughs. It’s a deep, bellowing sound, his head tossed mirthfully back, and he accidentally bumps into Alma from where they sit side by side. They both jolt; Alma, dreamy and lost in thoughts that are muddled by heat, and the old man, far too enamoured in his conversation to notice a bystander.

He says something to Alma in a language he doesn’t understand, clasps his shoulder with a meaty palm, and turns back to his companions to clink their glasses and laugh some more. Alma blinks, dazed.

The bathhouse was Kanda’s idea, really; they’d been riding for days and at the first sign of it, he’d veered their horses off the road and straight towards it. No second thoughts.

Which… was pretty rude, honestly, now that Alma’s thinking about it. Not even bothering to ask for his opinion like that—just running ahead to do his own thing and assuming that Alma would follow like some dog.

Which…granted, he did. But—ugh. Whatever! Whatever.

Alma huffs, feeling tetchy.

Then he just sighs, too dizzy from the steam to get worked up. He folds his arms over the edge of the hot bath, squishing his cheek against the cool marble and gazing blankly ahead. _It doesn’t matter_ , he thinks. _Just as long as Yuu’s happy._

And he does _look_ happy, at least. Or as happy as a sulk like Kanda can be.

Alma can see him out of the corner of his eye, just out of arm’s reach. His eyes are closed, head lolled back; he looks picturesque. His hair floods the water like ink, thick strands framing the hard edges of his body. On his chest, threads from his tattoo branch out, dark and black and looking sore like a bruise.

Alma’s eyes slip lower to the sharp slope of his throat, the dip of his collarbones, the hard edges where his ribs expand like a pair of closed parentheses. Below, the water distorts the boundaries of Kanda’s form but still Alma can make out the flash of dark where Kanda’s hips come untucked.

Alma bites the inside of cheek.

His eyes dart upwards, feeling like a criminal, but Kanda’s barely moved. Hasn’t even opened his eyes. His head is still tipped back, lounging. Alma sucks in a breath and dares to look down again, squints, tilts his head, tries to define some sort of boundary underneath the drifting form of the water. Kanda shifts. His thighs part a little.

A broad palm gently touches Alma’s shoulder and Alma’s jaw clenches so suddenly he almost bites his tongue. He turns and there’s the same man from before, soft smile, curly greying hair, offering Alma a slim glass of something light and bubbling. The delicate neck of the glass is pinched between his large fingers, looking like it’s on the cusp of snapping. Alma supposes he can relate.

Bewildered, he accepts the glass, takes a sip. It’s sweet and airy. He places it on the rim of the bath and when he looks back, Kanda is staring at him. Gaze straight and eyes black, looking like obsidian.

Alma stares back, feeling hot. On fire. He’s a smokestack, burning miles high for the whole world to see.

He takes a deep inhale, closed his eyes, and slips below the surface.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I _don’t—_ ”

“Give it to me.” Kanda snaps.

“ _No_. I’ll get it, I just don’t—” Alma huffs, an explosion of air.

“ _Give it to me_.” Kanda makes a swipe for the bottle. “You’re going to fuck it up.”

Alma holds the wine close to himself, protectively angling his body away from Kanda. “No!” He shrieks. The hotel bed springs creak underneath him.

He’s being petulant tonight and Kanda grinds his teeth together. “There’s nothing _to_ fuck up. I just…” Alma says, trailing off, digging a shallow pocket knife into the cork, picking away at it.

“You don’t even know how to do it, idiot.” Kanda bites but doesn’t make another grab. “Just let me do it.”

“ _Shut up._ ” Alma hisses and in a final child-like act, he stabs the pocket knife downwards with such clumsy force that the cork slides down the neck of the bottle and gets stuck in the wine. When Alma goes to pull it back out, the cork dislodges and remains in the bottle, soaking in the dark red. Flecks of it break off and scatter.

“See?” Alma shines bright, showing off his work as if the layer of cork pieces floating in their wine is an achievement. Kanda’s face twists in mild disgust and he swipes the bottle away.

The green glass is smooth in his palm, a little warm from all of Alma’s fussing. Kanda tilts his head back and drinks through clenched teeth, sieving out the pieces of cork. The wine lands a low punch to his stomach and his cheeks heat slowly, as if two candles were being held to either side of his face. Odd, Kanda thinks but he drinks another mouthful.

Kanda wipes his mouth with the back of his arm and tongues at the cork pieces caught between his teeth. He hands the bottle back to an expectant Alma and spits the debris at him, too. Just for good measure.

“Hey!” Alma yelps but Kanda ignores him and turns away. He’s seated on a stool of a large armoire, Alma on the twin bed behind them.

The armoire is big, _massive_ , really. Blocky and disproportionate to their tiny hotel room—there’s barely a few inches between it and the bed. It’s chipped, yellowing lacquer giving its mahogany a strange smell. Strange sheen. The whole hotel is strange and tiny. They’re only staying a night, but Kanda looks forward to leaving in the morning.

The mirror on top of the armoire is also large. Ornamental. It is much nicer than the armoire itself, with small, hand-painted fruits dotted in the corners. Kanda stares down his reflection in the mirror. Lotus flowers, pink and delicate, bloom from this shoulder blades.

A pair of brass scissors, a comb, and another bottle of wine are laid out delicately in front of him, as if in offering. A lotus petal falls from his shoulder as Kanda grabs the scissors and raises them to his head. Unceremoniously, his hair falls to the floor. _Snip_. The sound of the blades is clean and precise. _Snip_.

Alma squirms on the bed behind him, bottle in hand, surely dribbling wine all over the sheets. “ _Yuu._ ” He wines, petulant. Like a cat meowing for attention. Kanda glances back at him and his own scowl is reflected at himself in the mirror.

“Stop calling me that.” He says. _Snip_. Down falls another strand.

“You’re going to look so _ugly_ with short hair.” Alma huffs, rolling on the bed again until his face smothers into a pillow. And then, muffled, “ _I’m_ gonna look so ugly with short _er_ hair.”

“Tough fucking luck.” Kanda grits back, even though he doesn’t _really_ have to put up with Alma’s childish bullshit.

More hair falls as Kanda fills the ensuing silence with _snip snip snip._ He reaches to the back of his head, making a few approximate cuts, then to the left side of his face, trying to even out the length. The last of his hair falls silently yet definitely and Kanda stands from the mirror, placing the scissors on the armoire with a hollow click. He takes his shirt off, wiping away as much loose hair as possible but everything still begins to itch.

“Ok.” He says, short. He slips a new shirt and turns to where Alma’s thrown himself about the bed. There’s a small red stain where he’s spilt some wine on the sheets.

Kanda’s eyebrow twitches. “Come on.” He says. “Your turn.” He grabs Alma’s forearm and yanks him up, pulling him onto the stool. Alma looks at him with his big, sad, puppy dog eyes. Droopy. Pouty. He’s really playing it up, Kanda thinks with an irritated twitch of his brow.

“Do I have to?” Alma whines, and they both know the answer. Still, Kanda catches a faint, fond smile pulling at his lips.

“Yes.” He says with a small curl of affection in his tone. Then Kanda scoops up the bottle from Alma’s grasp and swings his head back. His throat bobs; he can feel Alma watching him in the mirror but he doesn’t do anything about it. He stops drinking once the alcohol starts to settle uncomfortably heavy in his stomach and he slams the bottle down next to the scissors, feeling pleasantly tipsy. Surprisingly tipsy.

Then Kanda grabs the scissors and makes the first cut. He’s hasty, a little less coordinated than he wants to be. Alma flinches but quickly settles into an obedient stillness. _Snip_.

“Maybe I could, you know, grow out my hair.” Alma wonders aloud as Kanda cuts another chunk off. It lands limply on the ground. Alma chews his lip. Pause. “Y'know, like, a girl.”

Kanda snorts. “What, you _want_ to look like a girl?”

Alma fidgets.

“I mean…” He says and trails off, rubbing at his nose, sheepish. “Maybe, like uh… uhm. It would help disguise us? They wouldn’t be looking for a man and a, uh, woman, right?” He says.

Kanda grunts because he doesn’t have anything else to say and the room settles into silence. _Snip._ Hair falls like lotus petals.

Alma takes sips from the wine bottle as Kanda slowly, methodically, cuts away his hair. It is a gentle rhythm between the two of them—a familiar dance that, truthfully, shouldn’t be familiar at all. Every time Alma tilts his head back to take another drink, Kanda moves away so there’s no accidental cuts. Then Alma settles the bottle back into the divot his lap and Kanda returns, brushing away loose strands of hair and thumbing the knobby slope of Alma’s spine. The hard ridges and tight arcs, right where it curves shallowly underneath the skin of his nape.

He can feel Alma staring holes into him from the reflection of the mirror, vision pinpointed on him like an arrow. Kanda ignores him, _snip snip snip_. He thinks about how he will have to find makeup at some point and cover Alma’s scar.

When he finishes, Alma is still looking at him in the mirror. His cheeks have now flushed, making his scar turn a deep red. Wine red. Oddly, he doesn’t complain about his new haircut; doesn’t complain about anything at all. Instead he just says, “You look like the old you.”

Kanda blinks but does not emote. Alma’s free hand waves at his jawline, gesturing at the new length of Kanda’s hair. “Same haircut.” He elaborates. “‘S nice, actually.”

Kanda blinks again. He feels caught off guard, unsure of what to say. The thought doesn’t sit well with him. Instead he fiddles with the scissors and trims away more of Alma’s hair, even though it’s fine as it is. Needs something productive to do to avoid the strange feeling of vulnerability that washes over him.

Alma doesn’t say anything else and neither does Kanda. Eventually, in the periphery Kanda sees Alma peel his eyes away and finish the bottle of wine. He reaches for the second one, buck knife in hand, and Kanda does not stop him.

Kanda steps away as Alma fiddles with the second cork. He stands there, a little uncertain, and fingers the short strands of his new hair.

His neck feels a little drafty.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The sky looks awfully bruised tonight, thinks Alma as he and Kanda stride down cobblestone. Above them it is violet with smudges of pink. A streak of yellow. A speck of blue.

They purchase blood oranges and eat them very quickly under the off-kilter sky. The sun has started to set earlier, now. The seasons have begun to change. They’ve been travelling for weeks and yet Alma has only just begun to notice the shift from summer to fall, hot to cold.

A woman sweeps rose petals off church steps. She has flaxen hair pulled into a tight ponytail and loose sleeves sewn onto her dress. Kanda sees her first, but Alma is quick to follow his gaze. She doesn't notice them, but there they stand in stretching shadows, staring, with orange peels folded at their feet.

“She looked like me.” Alma says, much later. They are sitting in a park now. It is after hours. The gates have closed, and the sun has set, and the weather is much too brisk for Alma’s comfort.

“Idiot.” Kanda murmurs with his eyes slipped shut. “She didn't look a thing like you.” He is lounging with his neck craned back, bare and unprotected. A picture of faux-relaxation. Alma can see the tension coiled under his skin; no matter how hard Kanda may try, Alma will always be able to see through him.

“Yes.” Alma insists. “Yes she did, Yuu.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“She looked like me.” He says again, looking around as if there is a chance he can spot a man with brown hair wound in tight curls. Alma could point to him and say _look Yuu, look. And he looks just like you_.

But, the park is deserted.

They are alone.

Silence stretches and settles around them. Time shifts. Kanda eventually cracks an eye open and stares at Alma. His iris looks black in the moonlight. Abyssal. “You look like you.” He says and shuts his eyes once more, as if to put an end to the conversation. Alma frowns. He edges closer to Kanda until their thighs are pressing ever so slightly.

“Did you ever dream about her?” Alma asks after a long moment. Had it been a little colder, his breath would have fogged the air. “Did you ever dream about me?”

Kanda’s pulse stutters. Alma can see it on the slope of his neck. Exposed. Alma’s lips are chapped so he swipes his tongue over them. Inches closer. “I,” He says, voice edging octaves lower, “dream about you.” His hand touches Kanda’s calf. His fingers trace the hemming of his pants. “‘Dream about you every night, even when you're sleeping next to me.”

Kanda’s exhale is audible, and still he does not open his eyes. Alma persists.

“She used to touch you like this,” he says. “Do you remember?”

Kanda's hand flexes where rests on the back of the bench. Alma leans in until his breath is fanning Kanda’s ear. “You were supposed to wait until marriage—do you remember that too?” His palm glides to Kanda’s thigh, hot where the air is cold. “‘Supposed to wait, but deep down both of you knew you probably wouldn't live long enough.”

Kanda’s eyes snap open, sharp. He stands and suddenly all the heat and friction and feeling evaporate until there is nothing left but a heavy emptiness between them. Alma’s hand falls limply to his side and he stares back at the fierceness in Kanda’s eyes.

And then Kanda turns and leaves with all the grace and poise of a trail of incense smoke. Silent and filmy but with the suggestion of something smouldering underneath.

Alma lingers for a moment, cold and alone on the park bench as he watches Kanda leave him behind. His fingers tingle where they slid along the seam of Kanda’s pants. Alma stares a little dumbly at his palm, slowly flexes his fingers, before standing and following a few steps behind.

He feels a little weightless.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been two months.

By now they’ve made it so far north that Kanda begins to recognize landmarks. A town here, a church there. High peaks in vague places slowly beginning to cement into concrete shapes and memories.

It’s slow going, but they manage.

The town they’ve been staying in for the past few days is one of the few Kanda actually knows by name; spent a summer here with Marie and Daisya watching Tiedoll paint the countryside and bowls of strange, foreign fruit.

The memory, oddly, is not a bad one. Just vignettes of sparring with Daisya, all bright-eyed as he pinned Kanda down on the cobblestone. Picking apart red pomegranates with Marie under the balmy midday sun; the sound of Tiedoll’s paintbrush rasping against canvas. Daisya’s laughter and Tiedoll’s broad palm briefly, fleetingly, hugging Kanda’s shoulder.

Inside the town’s marketplace, Kanda shifts as someone breezes past him, staring down at a barrel full of ripe apricots: plump and pregnant-looking. The last of the season, now that the world has shifted silently into autumn.

The young woman in charge of the stall has been trying to sell Kanda anything from the apricots to sticks of cinnamon to slabs of salted, dried fish. Strange and foul-smelling. Kanda ignores her and begrudgingly forks out the last of their coins to pay for an overpriced jar of mayonnaise. He leaves with a small bag of groceries tucked neatly under his arm.

Outside, Alma stares at his silhouette in storefront glass; the reflection of his form against a white wedding dress propped for display. He twists, as if imagining the slip of fabric contorting to the angles of his body. Stops. Takes one step forward. Two steps back. Tilts his head and raises his arms.

Kanda feels his brow twitch. His mind, for some odd reason, thinks of a wedding dress sewn from lotus petals. He readjusts his grip on the bag and takes quick strides, grabbing Alma by the wrist and pulling him through the crowd.

Much later they sit on a hillside eating mayonnaise sandwiches against the pink hues of the setting sun. It reminds Kanda of that summer, years ago, and he finds himself thinking about Marie and Tiedoll. About Daisya and the Order and that damned Beansprout, too. For a small, quiet moment Kanda gets lost in thought. To his left Alma sucks on a butterknife slicked with mayo, staring off somewhere in the distance while the town’s bells ring below in succession. 7:30 P.M.

It’s not quite cold out yet—still too early in the season—but still Kanda and Alma sit close, sharing a wool blanket draped over their shoulders. It’s… nice. It feels strange to admit it, but Kanda feels… content. Maybe even happy.

Here in the quiet lull of it all, time moves, molasses slow.

Kanda knows they should get going soon. Alma knows it, too. They should pack their bags, leave town—they’ve been here for a better part of a week now and they both know it isn’t safe to hang around much longer.

Still, they stay. Quietly together. Kanda looks out as orange lights flicker on in the city below, darkness settling around them. The tips of his fingers feel warm and pink in the early autumn air.

Beside him Alma begins to doze off, head bobbing. He slides onto his back, pulling the blanket with him and Kanda lets him. Just this once.

Kanda would never admit it, but Alma looks so stupidly peaceful like that. As if he was a kid again, no weight resting on his shoulders. Kanda feels like a sentimental idiot for thinking it, but it’s true. The droop of Alma’s sleeping face, hair framed by lotus flowers. A big, ugly glob of drool worming its way down the corner of his open mouth. It’s… almost cute. Sweet. Endearing. It makes Kanda’s stomach tighten into a strange knot but that just ends up making him angry so instead he just scowls, turning away.

They stay there, on the hillside, until the moon is but a crux in the sky. Full and bright, blinding out the stars. Above them the heavens have settled into a quiet hum; around them cricket songs ring out to the valley below. Time settles and stays until suddenly there’s the sound of a twig snapping in the forest behind them.

Kanda jolts, not realizing he’d been sliding off to sleep. His head whips around so quickly it feels like whiplash. And there it is: a man rushing towards them, lotus petals crushing underfoot. Kanda barely has time to blink before he’s being kicked in the face and pinned to the ground.

He instinctively reaches for Mugen but his hand curls around nothing but air; the hilt long since missing from its usual spot at his hip. Kanda curses. Blood smears from the boot mark on his nose.

Alma yelps awake at the commotion just as the man’s hands curl around Yuu’s neck, pressing down on his windpipes with deadly force. He’s thick and bulky and his weight alone forces a wheeze out from Kanda’s sternum.

“ _Traitor._ ” The man hisses as he puts all of his strength into the attack. Thick strings of saliva drip onto Kanda’s face as the man leans over him. Kanda grits his teeth, thinking fast, trying to reach high enough to claw at the bastard’s eyes and gouge them out. A cloud passes overhead, blotting out the moon. For a terrible moment everything goes dark and all Kanda can do is fixate on the feeling of the man’s fingertips pressing into his skin. Kanda bucks his hips and the man above jostles but does not release his hold. The cloud passes and the light fades back in, catching on the metallic sheen of the Black Order’s badge pinned to the man’s chest.

“ _Kanda Yuu!_ ” The man bellows, “ _You goddamned traitor!_ ” He tightens his grip around Kanda’s neck even more, and Kanda actually gurgles. His nails catch on the man’s flesh, scratching with genuine desperation as his face blooms into a sickly red. In his prime, Kanda could easily knock someone three times the brute’s size off of him, but as the oxygen fades Kanda is realizing faster and faster that he is farther from his prime than he thought.

 _Fuck,_ Kanda thinks.

He wonders if he is going to die.

Again.

Suddenly the man above him goes rigid, as if he just grabbed a live wire. His grip slackens enough for Kanda to take a gasping breath and Kanda notices that the wetness suddenly dripping onto his face is not drool but blood.

He scurries out from under the man, heart hammering, feeling scared for the first time in weeks. Months. _Years._ He grips his neck, touches the tender flesh where his windpipe came close to collapsing. Chest heaves. Pulse flutters. His eyes are red-rimmed and wide, and for what might be the first time in (this) life, the fear and the shock paralyze him.

“ _Bastard!_ ” Alma screams. His voice raises so high that it cracks as he stands behind the man, facing Kanda. He has a rock easily twice the size of his own head held up in the air. Blood stains its marbled surface. “You bastard!” He slams the rock down on the man’s head where he kneels, groaning, and crumples to the ground. _Crack._ “Don’t you dare—” _Crack._ “—Take Yuu—” _Crack_. “—Away from me—” _Crack._ “ _—Again_.” _Crack._

“ _Alma._ ” Kanda’s voice comes out in a wheeze, air struggling to move through his swelling windpipe. “ _Alma._ ” He whispers. “ _That’s enough._ ” His speech is rough and warped but all at once Alma stills, bloodied rock still grasped in his white-knuckled grip. He drops it and rushes over to Kanda’s side just as Kanda is pushing himself up and onto his forearms. Alma kneels beside him, faithful as ever, and lightly touches Kanda between his shoulder blades. He helps him sit up and Kanda coughs, breath ragged and heavy and too loud in the once comforting silence.

He can feel Alma’s hands trembling, thinks his might be trembling too.

“ _I—_ ”

A branch snaps in the distance. Their heads snap to the sound in unison and under the blue moonlight they see a figure running down the hillside, towards the town.

Alma immediately bolts upwards, high on adrenaline. “Yuu, we have to— _we— Yuu—_ “ His mind is running a thousand miles a minute, erratic. “We have to get him, quick, before he gets away!” Alma’s ready to run but Kanda holds his arm out as a blockade, his other hand gently touching at his swollen throat.

“ _Stop._ ” He says very quietly. “They’re too far, we won’t—“ He takes a deep exhale, words struggling to make their way out of his crushed windpipe, blood pounding so hard it’s difficult to even articulate his thoughts. “—get them in time. We—“ A slow, heavy inhale. “—Have to leave. Now.”

Alma’s eyes stare at the figure as it disappears under the cover of darkness. Beside them lays the dead body of the other Order member, cooling under the summer night’s breeze, head pulp-like in texture. The blood looks black in the moonlight.

Eventually Alma tears himself away from the fleeing figure, stifling those odd primal urges that arise from fear. He turns back to Kanda and Kanda finds himself reaching for Alma before he’s even offered a hand.

And just like that, they’re gone again. Their brief moment of serenity shattered on the ground like the dropping of glass.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They leave town. Pack their bags under the cool blue midnight and set their horses in a gallop long before the city awakes.

Kanda wraps himself in thick scarves to hide the the bruising that swallows his neck. Red and angry and screaming before bleeding into a wounded black. Every gallop is sharp and painful but still they ride for days, weeks, can’t stop. No, no. The tranquility has been shattered and now they’re both afraid but will admit it.

They agree to stay away from towns; sleep in ditches and the thick of roadside brush. Take turns on watch and make sure to keep their horses out of sight but never out of reach. They keep scurrying, scurrying. Always keeping to the edges. At night Alma tries his best to help with the bruising but Kanda always just… well, he sort of… Shuts down. Closes off. He’s become cold, hardened, unresponsive and dismissive. It makes Alma’s heart ache.

They got too careless—Alma knows that. And although Kanda never says anything, Alma also knows that Kanda blames him for wanting to stay longer. Knows that he blames himself for letting them.

Two weeks after their encounter with the Finder they both talk about getting supplies from a city. As careful as they try to be, they can’t last much longer. It’s getting colder now—too cold to sleep through the night with only one wool blanket, and they certainly both need jackets. A new knife, too. Alma’s canteen has a leak.

It doesn’t require much of a discussion. No negotiating. They both know what needs to be done. On a hazy autumn evening they hide their horses just outside of some city’s limits and set off in search of supplies.

Their twin footsteps echo off cobblestone streets. The city is quiet, Alma thinks, but not usually so. The clouds are pregnant with rain today, heavy and swaying low to the ground. A storm has been trailing them for a few days now: a dark mass, just beyond the horizon. Blankly, Alma watches a mother pull her child by the wrist as they cross the piazza he and Kanda walk through. The child whines as his mother tugs him along.

A few minutes later, the first drop lands square on Alma’s forehead just as he stares up at the clouds and wonders out loud when it’ll start to pour. The rest comes with a roll of thunder, as sudden and loud as the crack of a rifle. He and Kanda are drenched in a matter of seconds, clothes soaked and sticky and clinging in all the wrong ways before Alma even has time to close his big mouth.

Kanda takes off, running for shelter and Alma shouts as he jogs to keep up. There’s a church just a few steps away and they make it there in record time, huddled in front of the oak doors that sit closed in the late hours of the day.

The rain thunders down, loud and deafening.

Kanda is pulling at the church’s heavy iron handles and Alma is complaining as he shivers in the rain. “ _Yuu—_ ” He wails, long and drawn out. “Yuu, hurry up! Come _on_ , it’s raining!”

“ _Shut up_.” Kanda hisses. His tone is frustrated, barely audible over the downpour that hammers on the streets. Alma glances behind them and sees a small river already twisting down along the cobblestone, growing wider and faster, garbage catching and washing down with it. He’s almost horrified at the suddenness of it all; thinks, dumbly, that maybe that woman and child were on to something when they were running for cover.

Kanda is kicking at the rusted deadbolt now, full force and pissed off. It snaps and the large, ominous door creaks open. He lands heavily on his feet, a _tch_ escaping from under his breath. Then Kanda pulls Alma inside, shoving the heavy door closed as rainwater begins to seep on to the granite floor.

“ _Fuck._ ” Kanda hisses, shaking the water from his hair. Alma idly nods in agreement. Kanda pulls off the sopping scarves sticking to his neck, throws them onto the ground in childish rage. Then he storms off, angry like a wet cat, into the belly of the church.

Alma watches him go—means to follow, really—but his gaze gets sidetracked as he stares at the rows of pews and the high church ceilings. Tall peaks and white decor. 

The cathedral is _huge_ , Alma thinks, such a feeling of immenseness held in all four walls. It’s taller than it is wide and as Alma gazes up, he finds himself feeling very, very small. Insignificant. He’s dwarfed by the large silk tapestries hanging from the walls and the hundreds of delicate stained glass windows crafted into the brick and mortar high above his head. All around him the walls and pillars are decorated with intricate carvings: weeping angels and women with children, stares vacant. Chipped paint.

Alma runs his hands along the ridges and grooves of a small cherub’s face, pressing the pad of his thumb into its eye socket. The plaster flakes in his hands and crumbles to the floor. Alma sniffs. He knows God—the _real_ God—not these flecks of gold paint.

Behind him, Kanda flits like a shadow. He carries a lit candle and scavenges the church for anything useful. Alma turns and watches as Kanda pulls an embroidered cloth from the altar, shaking any dust from the tapestry before using it to dry his hair. Then he’s gone again, moving about the church, feet tapping on the cold, polished floor while Alma idly sways in the entranceway. He feels oddly overwhelmed.

Outside, the rain pours, but inside the noise echoes like a heartbeat in the hollow of the church. Alma is thankful to be out of the rain, of course, but an odd pinch of anger moves through him. Settles in the back of his throat, tasting sour like ash. It feels wrong, being here. Like a betrayal, or a defeat. Just standing in a church feels like a scar being picked at, nails being dug into old wounds until they split open all over again.

And then, just like that, left to stew in his own thoughts, all of Alma’s anger and resentment towards the Order begins to bubble back up. Sudden, like the flash flood through the city streets. He clenches his jaw, cheeks heating, and remembers. He thinks, _how could they do that to us?_ Over and over, like a storm kicking up the tides, the thought washes over him. How could they do that? How could they do that to us? What gave them the right?

They’re bastards, Alma thinks. _Bastards_. Every last one of them. If Alma could have one more wish, it would be to kill every single one. Burn the whole goddamn place to the ground. Fuck the Order, fuck what they did to them. They should all rot in hell. His jaw clenches and he tightens his palms into fists, slamming it against the wall. The bang echoes and dissipates within the church, fading out into a hollow ringing. _How could they do that to us?_

Alma slams his fist, again, again, until suddenly there is a hand wrapping around his wrist, grip so tight that the tiny bones in Alma’s hand crunch together. Alma freezes, looks down to where Kanda’s fingers loop around him, holding him in place. Grounding. Cold skin against cold skin.

He blinks the angry tears out of his eyes and looks up to meet Kanda’s glare.

“Stop it.” Kanda says. “Or someone might find us.”

Alma grits his teeth so hard he thinks he can feel a molar crack. He’s suddenly so angry he could snap someone in half, but… Kanda is right. The bruises on his neck flash as a warning.

So Alma closes his eyes, breathes deep. Wills all the meanness to leave his body on the next exhale, but it’s not that easy to let go.

“Aren’t you angry?” Alma asks and Kanda seems to understand. He lets go of Alma’s wrist and regards him carefully.

“Yes.” He admits. “But I understand why they did it.” Outside, thunder rumbles.

Alma’s face twists into a scowl. An ugly, angry thing illuminated by a flash of lightning. “I understand why they did it too!” He spits. “But that doesn’t make it _okay._ ”

“No.” Kanda says, lowly. “But I _understand_.” He enunciates every word, as if Alma will agree with his shitty reasoning if he just explains it slower. Makes Alma feel like a fucking child.

“And this?” Alma grits, reaching for Kanda’s neck. Touching the noose of bruises, all speckled black and blue. Looks like rotting meat. “Do you understand why this did _this_ to you?”

Kanda tenses. Goes ramrod straight. He hits Alma’s hand away and takes a defensive step back. “Don’t fucking touch me.” He warns.

Alma advances, presses into Kanda’s space. Nose to nose, tête-à-tête, challenging him. “How are you okay with this?” Alma demands. “How can you let them treat you like this?”

“ _Fuck off._ ” Kanda growls but Alma ignores him. He presses his fingers into the splotchy bruises, into the neat fingerprints of the man who nearly crushed Kanda’s throat.

“They did this to you.” Alma accuses, looking where his fingers fit perfectly in the imprint. He can feel Kanda swallow, the bob of his throat and the roll of his skin under Alma’s touch. The feeling is electric.

Suddenly, Kanda grabs his arm and twists. Alma yelps as Kanda kicks his feet out and pins him to the ground. Alma’s chin smacks against the floor and Kanda presses his knee between his shoulder blades, holding him in place.

“I told you not to fucking touch me.” He twists Alma’s arm and Alma yelps, squirming, trying to get out. “And what makes you any different from the Order anyways? You tried to kill me.” Kanda reminds him. “Twice.”

Alma jolts and stills, eyes going wide.

“ _I—_ “ “But.” Kanda cuts him off. “I understand why.”

Alma stops. Blinks. Doesn’t even bother to struggle against the knee digging into his back. Kanda loosens his grip but doesn’t let go. He tilts his head and strips of wet hair falls past his shoulders. “I’m angry.” Kanda says. “Of course I’m fucking angry—I haven’t forgiven you.” Alma flinches. “But I don’t hate you.” Kanda continues. “I understand.”

Outside, the rain continues to pour. For a moment neither of them say anything over the sound of the storm hammering on the roof. Alma shifts under Kanda, blinking away angry tears and squishing his face against the floor. He sighs, loudly. “Okay.” He says, voice muffled. “Okay, I get it. Let me go.”

Kanda is dubious. “Are you done with your little hissy fit?”

“ _Yes._ ” Alma groans and Kanda hesitates before slowly releasing his arm. He climbs off Alma’s back and Alma sits up, wringing his shoulder. It aches from the awkward position.

Kanda stands in front of him, reaches out his hand and offers to help Alma stand up. Alma’s face twists. He grabs Kanda’s forearm and staggers to his feet before he immediately curls inwards, pressing his head against Kanda’s chest. Kanda grunts but, surprisingly, doesn’t push him away. Just holds him, awkwardly, stiffly. Doesn’t say a thing when Alma presses close and says, murmurs _I’m sorry_ against his wet shirt.

And just like that they stand there, sharing heat, under the flicker of candlelight. Thunder rattles with window panes and lightning streaks the sky but inside, for now, they are safe.

“Sometimes,” Alma says quite a while later, “I wish I could cut you open and curl up inside of you.” He still has his head pressed against Kanda, listening to his heartbeat. It thumps steady against Alma’s eardrum and Alma finds himself sleepy, dreamy. Admitting things he probably shouldn’t, as if he was drunk on the intimacy.

“Freak.” Kanda says.

“Is that weird?”

“Yeah.” Kanda’s eyes are closed but they slip open when Alma pulls himself away. The absence of heat is palpable.

“Do you love me?” Alma says, sudden as if the thought was just occurring to him. Kanda’s eyebrows jump but his face stays neutral. He does not respond.

Alma exhales, a breathy noise coming out of his throat. He leans in close. “You know I love you, right?” Still, no response. He takes a step forward and Kanda drifts back. He moves again and Kanda lets himself be pushed back against the wall, slowly and experimentally. Testing the boundaries. The arch of his spine connects so smoothly with the plaster that it doesn’t even make a sound. Alma closes in, putting his hands on Kanda’s throat.

He feels him swallow.

Kanda stares him in the eyes, and there’s a look Alma can’t quite place. Something tender, maybe, hidden underneath all that hardness.

Alma’s hands cup his neck and his thumbs move under Kanda’s jaw, tilting his head upwards. Kanda looks down and Alma slides himself up, slowly, slowly, slipping a knee in between Kanda’s legs. They both breathe. Quiet under the thundering rain.

“I did dream about you.” Kanda says, eventually. Alma cocks his head, confused. Kanda’s voice is almost too quiet, too soft. Nothing like the hard edges of Kanda that Alma’s grown so used to. They both hold their gazes; Kanda tips his head to the side, a fraction of an inch, and Alma feels hot.

“Back then,” Kanda elaborates. “In the park.” And Alma notices the tips of his ears are dipped in red. “You asked me if I ever had dreams about you. If I ever thought about you.” _The way you think about me._

Kanda wets his lips. It’s an unconscious motion but Alma can’t seem to draw his eyes away. The sheen of saliva is bright in the low light of the church candle. Kanda breathes, speaks so quietly that Alma wonders if it’s just a trick of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He says, “On the day I died, I dreamt about you.”

A beat of silence. Alma feels his chest flutter, quiet and barely noticeable at first until suddenly it explodes. It’s like millions of moth wings, squirming through his lungs and up his throat. It surprises him. Chokes him, a little. It’s… not a pleasant feeling. Not what he was expecting, anyways. Instead he feels overwhelmed, like there’s something inside of him that’s full and bursting and it’s uncomfortable or maybe it just _hurts._ A feeling so visceral it takes a physical shape inside of him.

Alma breathes.

Kanda breathes.

They both inhale and exhale, quiet and heavy and nearly in tandem. Positive, negative. Alma slides closer, presses his knee higher. Uncertain but curious. Kanda’s breath hitches, barely audible, and Alma feel’s those moth wings again, beating twice as fast.

“Say it again.” Alma’s so close now, the heat of his words misting Kanda’s chin. Kanda tries to pull his head down but Alma keeps it tilted up, thumbs pressed firmly in the dip of his jaw.

“I dreamt about you.” Kanda says, voice tight. And then, after a moment: “I _dream_ about you.”

“Say it again.” Alma repeats. Greedy. He gets so close their chests press and their sticky, cooling clothes rewarm at the contact. He keeps Kanda’s head tipped in place and looks up at an angle. He can feel Kanda’s jaw clench, but Kanda doesn’t speak another word.

“Do you love me?” Alma tries again, tilting his head curiously. Still no response. He pulls Kanda down and fists a hand in his hair. Relishes for just a brief moment in the strands pulling in his grasp, the slight dip as Kanda’s head jerks back.

Kanda grips his hips so hard the bone feels like it could splinter in this grasp. Like Alma could break apart in the palm of his hands. The feeling is familiar.

He tilts his head to the other side. Rain, still wet in his hair, jostles and dribbles down the longest strand, onto the ground, like a string of pearls with a broken clasp. Kanda’s hands tense and then slowly slide up, up, along the dips and rolls of Alma’s ribs, the cleft of his collarbones, the tight angles of his throat. They stare at each other. Outside, the storm rages on.

Kanda’s palms are not warm, not cold—a little clammy maybe, when they fit so perfectly in the contour of Alma’s jaw. They mirror each other, staring. Alma’s eyes flutter a little on an exhale. “Tell me you love me.” He says, barely a breath.

Instead, Kanda presses himself closer. Their foreheads press and then their noses press and then their lips press and Alma wonders what would happen if they just kept pressing. If he could just crawl inside of Yuu and wrap himself up until there was nothing but Yuu, Yuu, _Yuu._

Alma parts his lips, licks his tongue and Kanda reciprocates. He feels like he’s absolutely melting; like all the tension in his body leaves on his next exhale. His leg pushes up where it’s been rubbing against the inner seam of Kanda’s pants and Kanda starts to presses back from against the wall.

Alma’s hand starts to unwind from the tangle of hair at the back of Kanda’s head and slips to cup the nape of his neck instead. He groans, low and surprised when Kanda nips at his lips, worries the bottom one and glides along the edge.

One of Kanda’s hands slips back down from the slope of Alma’s face back to his hip. The touch burns slow and easy and Alma feel’s like he’s a piece of heated metal pulled from the embers, red and hot and bending under Kanda’s touch. Then Kanda’s hand glides lower, follows the crease of his hips and rubs at his inner thigh. Alma’s breath hitches. His hand grips Kanda’s nape and he bites down, _hard_.

Kanda bites back, no hesitation, and suddenly they are nipping and biting and fighting, teeth pressed against teeth, two wolves.

There’s a brief, splitting pain. The taste of blood. Alma thinks, _oh. That was my lip._ And then Kanda’s hand is cupping Alma through his pants and Alma is biting and licking and saliva smears at the corners of their mouths. Alma doesn’t particularly know what he’s doing but excitement hits him heavy and hard, low in his gut.

Kanda rubs him through the chaffing fabric of his slacks in rough, confident circles, and Alma exhales desire. All he can think about is how much he wants to push Kanda around. Force him down and take him. Feel him shake, make him cum, cry, pull him apart and make him his.

So, he does.

Alma unwinds his hands from their white-knuckled grip around Kanda and shoves him down, over one of the pews. Kanda twists. He pushes back but Alma is tired of playing coy. Is sick of these goddamn games. Sick of always dancing around one another.

He drapes himself over Kanda, runs his hands unabashedly over the tight grooves of his muscles and gropes his chest. He slides his hands under Kanda’s damp shirt and along the hem of his pants but, on second thought, tugs at the belt loops for Kanda to take it off himself. Alma takes his pants off too—no underwear—and throws them to the side. The sound makes a wet flop, rainwater bleeding out of the fabric when it hits the ground. Kanda looks back to glare at him but Alma reaches over and brushes away some hair that’s fallen in his face. He kisses Kanda, once, twice. Licks his lips. Bites his mouth. Wishes he could just unhinge his jaw and swallow Kanda whole.

Alma sighs. Presses his hips to Kanda’s hips, his thighs to Kanda’s thighs. He’s hard now, cock filling out slowly but surely, despite the cold, stale air. Can’t help but think that Kanda looks so good on his hands and knees like this. Alma leans back over, partially to feel the heat of a body underneath him, but mostly to touch everywhere he can.

Both hands catch on Kanda’s shirt and slowly push it up his back, exposing the dip in his back, pocked with moles. Rapaciously he feels along the stretched skin, the tight coil of muscle. He closes his eyes and thinks back to when they fucked as man and woman and not as two runaways in the night. Back to when Alma felt this same expanse of skin under his nails and Kanda— _past_ Kanda, the old Kanda, the one with curly brown hair and half-lidded eyes—fucked Alma so desperately his legs went numb.

Or maybe... he should say her legs?

Alma’s face scrunches in contemplation.

His memories are still muddy; he thought with time they would gradually filter back in, fill the void that death left behind, but now Alma is starting to think they’ll never fully return. He can’t even remember what kind of desperation was buzzing between them that night so, so many years ago. Did they have _thank god you’re alive_ sex? Or maybe _we both might die tomorrow? I love you? I need you? I want you?_

Whatever, Alma thinks. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The past doesn’t matter and neither does the future; all that’s important is that Alma has Kanda right here, right now, spread out so beautifully under his fingertips. He trails his hands up Kanda’s back, taking his time to feel each and every single bone. Kanda’s ribs expand, sharp in the same way the word _mine_ rolls of the tongue.

“You’re so beautiful, Yuu.” Alma sighs, leaning down to ghost his breath over Kanda’s nape. Kanda clicks his tongue, perhaps in annoyance. Alma bites at the knob of bone on Kanda’s nape. Mouthes at it in apology. He feels ravenous; wants to eat Kanda raw so no one else can ever have him.

“I love you.” He says. “I love you, I love you.”

He spits in his hand and runs it over his own dick, root to tip. Squeezes the head a little and feels a full-body shudder move from the top of his spine to the tips of his toes. He bites his lip and strokes a few times before rubbing up along the cleft of Kanda’s ass. The heat, the teasing friction, it’s… a lot. Nothing he’s felt before.

Alma is flushed, head to toe as he fucks against Kanda’s ass. Around them, slick squelches and the creaking of the pew as he and Kanda saw back and forth between each other. Alma moves in hard, short thrusts. Nothing languid; no even tempo. He pulls back, hands moving to grip Kanda’s hips and fucks froward, hard enough to jostle Kanda against the pew.

“Can I, Yuu?” He pants. “Can I? Yuu? Can I please?” Alma leans back, fucking up into the cleft of Kanda’s ass, enthusiastic and savouring the slick glide of precum and spit on soft skin. Every so often, the tip of his dick catches and nudges against the rim of Kanda’s asshole. “I wanna put it in, _please_ Yuu?”

Kanda is panting underneath him. The sight is so unreal, so unexpectedly erotic, that Alma nearly cums right then and there.

“No—we, _hah,_ ” Kanda chokes when he shifts and Alma’s dick slides between his thighs, dragging against his perineum. Kanda’s skin is patchy and red, and Alma thinks, _beautiful. He’s beautiful._ Kanda groans and the sound spurs Alma on.

“We need,” Kanda tries again but now Alma isn’t listening. He’s sped up, wildly fucking his hips like an animal in heat. He’s overwhelmed with the friction. Overwhelmed with desire. Overwhelmed with the very thought of having Yuu all spread out like this under his touch. Kanda Yuu, his and his and only his. No one else.

Kanda grits his teeth and practically _growls._ Reaches back and grips Alma’s wrist so hard that the joints pop. “Will you fucking stop it for _one goddamned second._ ” He bites, loud and echoing in the hollow of the church. And so Alma does, coming back to himself, surprised, and looking rather owlish.

Kanda cranes his neck, face flushed and red, looking back with an expression that could cut glass. “We need oil.” Each word is enunciated and sharp like the grinding of an axe. “Or else it’s not going in.”

Alma frowns and Kanda lets go of his wrist. After a second, Alma stands; his knees shake, uncertain, and he looks around dumbly as if expecting a bottle of oil to just _be_ there. He rubs his arms as he staggers around, craning his neck. He feels a little cold.

He looks back to Kanda. “I don’t see any.”

“Look harder.”

And so Alma does, cock bobbing comically with each step. When he returns after a few minutes he’s frowning, arms crossed and cock slowly deflating. Kanda looks up at him, still on the ground. He’s turned around now, legs folded underneath himself and skin still red and patchy. His hair looks like a mess.

“I can’t find any.” Alma says, and his whine catches in his tone.

Kanda’s face pinches. He begins to reach for his pants. “Then it’s not going in.” He says, flat as roadkill.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Alma says, dropping to kneel in front of him. He puts his palms on Kanda’s shoulders and presses forward, looking at him in the eyes with those bright eyes. “Wait, hold on Yuu.” Kanda looks murderous but pauses, flashing an expression he knows would make anyone turn around and run away, but not Alma. Never Alma.

“Can we— can we maybe just do what we were doing before?” Alma asks and Kanda cocks and incredulous eyebrow. “Please, Yuu? It doesn’t…” He glances to his flagging erection. “You know, _have_ to go in. It can, like, go between.”

“Between.” Kanda repeats, dumbly.

“Yeah, like, your thighs? Come on Yuu, you can’t tell me you didn’t like it.” Alma says, voice getting a little breathier. His eyelashes flutter, going half-lidded. “You didn’t like me touching you?” He murmurs, leaning in close.

Kanda’s gaze is still hard and his brows are still furrowed but when Alma leans closer, breath ghosting across Kanda’s cheek, Alma can see the steady flush beginning to crawl back up Kanda’s neck.

Alma slides one hand from Kanda’s shoulder down, down, slowly. Over his collarbone, his chest, palm pressing flat as it glides down his stomach. Alma’s other hand moves up, cupping Kanda’s neck and feeling the steady pulse there slowly pick up speed as he leans in closer.

The pants in Kanda’s grip fall back to the ground as his hand unclenches and slides up Alma’s back. Alma’s got his face pressed close to Kanda’s; knows Kanda can feel him smile when Kanda’s arm slips back up and grips the short ends of Alma’s hair, twisting them.

Alma’s hand hand inches lower, cards through Kanda’s thick pubic hair and curls around dick, stroking it with a loose first. The angle is a little weird, but when he tightens his fist on an upstroke Kanda exhales, heaving and hot against the shell of Alma’s ear.

He leans in closer, swipes a tongue along Alma’s ear and Alma squeezes every muscle in his body to keep from yelping. Then Kanda bites, kisses, drags his lips along the side of Alma’s jaw and pulls back just far enough so they can kiss. He sticks his tongue in Alma’s mouth and he let’s him, accepts him, opens his mouth wider. Wants Kanda to spit in his mouth and bite his lips so hard they’re raw.

Alma moans, soft and quiet, and Kanda licks along his teeth. Alma’s grip on Kanda’s cock tense, he strokes quicker, rubs the head. And then he’s pressing Kanda away, pushing him back down to kneel other those same pews, and Kanda lets him but only with a parting bite to Alma’s puffy lips.

Then Alma kneels, staggers on his knees a little, and wraps himself around Kanda’s torso. With his other hand he lines up his cock and fucks between the cleft of Kanda’s thighs. Kanda grunts. Alma does it again and Kanda pulls back, silently spitting on his hand and jacking off Alma in quick succession, despite the angle. He rearranges himself, positions Alma at a better angle, and Alma’s cock slips around the tight heat of Kanda’s thighs seamlessly.

Curiously, Alma realizes, Kanda’s actions suggest experience.

He cocks his head to the side, asks: “Has anyone ever touched you like this?” _Other than me? Other than back then?_

Alma loops a hand between them and palms at Kanda’s dick before wrapping a fist around it. He sets a lazy pace, loose on his downward strokes and tight on his upwards. Kanda heaves a shaky exhale, sounding irritated. “I—“ Kanda chokes out a sob when Alma tightens his hold on his cock and suddenly Alma decides that he doesn’t want to hear the answer. The idea that anyone else has ever disheveled Kanda other than Alma himself does not sit well in Alma’s stomach.

“It doesn’t matter.” He says, quickly swallowing his jealousy before it can get out of control. “It doesn’t matter because you’re all mine, now, Yuu. No one else gets to see you like this.”

Kanda does not emote but his silence is deafening. His head hangs low and hair curls down past his shoulders, revealing the soft bruising around his neck. Alma decides he doesn’t like that either; doesn’t like some else’s mark on him, doesn’t like the thought that he could have lost Kanda back there on that hillside. Doesn’t want anyone to touch Kanda ever again, never-ever, no, no, no, no, _no._

Alma cants his hips again, picks up a new rhythm and fucks like a beast. Fucks like it’s the first and last time he’ll ever get the chance. And, well. Maybe it is.

He pumps Kanda’s cock, loose on the downstroke and tight on the upstroke. His thumb swipes over the head, smearing the precome and coating his hand with more lubrication. Kanda groans. Alma wants more. He plays with the foreskin, pulling it back, forward, runs his thumbnail along the seam. Kanda shivers. Alma wants _more._

It’s sticky and wet and Alma noses the slope of Kanda’s neck to smell the sweat that’s gathered there. He moves up, presses his tongue behind the curve of Kanda’s ear and Kanda tenses his thighs; squeezes them together so tight Alma cums right then and there.

He groans, bites down on the meat of Kanda’s shoulder, feels the skin break under his teeth and laps up the blood. His orgasm comes in waves, something rare and delightful and all powering for just a few seconds as his mind blanks. Alma can’t help but imagine he’s cumming inside of Kanda, pressing flush and pumping into him. Thinks about his cock stretched around the rim of Kanda’s asshole, a slick line of pearly cum sliding down Kanda’s thigh when he pulls out. Thinks about playing with the rim, dipping his fingers in and pushing the cum back in.

The thought excites him. Twists something low in his gut, and Alma’s dick gives a bob of interest despite steadily losing its girth. He lets go of Kanda’s dick pulls back, sitting on his haunches and Kanda twists around to face him.

Kanda sits with his legs bent, cock still erect but heavy enough that it leans against his stomach. It arcs elegantly, a pearl of precum on the top. Alma notices Kanda’s inner thighs are red and sticky from where he’s been fucking between them and suddenly Alma has the audacity to blush now of all times.

Kanda tilts his head to the side, tries his best to look more irritated than breathless and says, “Well?” Spreads his legs a little further and Alma wets his lips.

Outside, the lightning flashes. Lights up the whole church in a mosaic of colours.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The sun is rising now. Or will be, soon.

The horizon shifts from light blue to a timid orange glow, and Kanda grips the reigns tighter as their horses ascendle the white shale path.

Even at the base of the mountains, the air feels thinner; Kanda notices and he’s sure Alma notices too. The horses jostle, bellowing plumes of frosted morning air, clumsy and ungraceful on the dubiously shifting stone path.

Kanda readjusts himself. The ride is uncomfortable. Under his clothes he can feel raw skin and bite marks rub against the fabric. The scratchy sensation of his pants rubbing against his thighs. Kanda flushes; pretends the heat radiating off of his ears is just from the cold weather.

Eventually, they reach some semblance of a clearing. There is a row of trees, creating a clearly defined edge where the flora shift into species more suited for the high altitudes. 

Kanda dismounts, Alma too. He hands Alma his reigns to his horse before he begins scouring the tree line, searching for a landmark. Around him, lotus flowers bloom like fresh fruit, heavy on the branches. 

And there Kanda finds it, a rosary tied around an oak tree trunk. The string of beads is so old that the tree has begun to grow around it, swallowing it, but there’s no mistake. Just beyond the brush is an overgrown path, not quite visible unless you’re looking for it. It’s lit up by lotus flowers and twists upwards where the mountain slopes dramatically to the sky.

 _Thank god,_ Kanda thinks. He was half expecting it to not be here.

They spend a few minutes getting ready before the long hike ahead of them. Alma anxiously pets their horses while Kanda triple checks both their bags. When he’s satisfied he turns to Alma who looks at him, nervous.

“Okay?” Alma asks.

“Okay.”

Kanda goes to the horses, removes their bridles and throws the worn metal and leather somewhere in the underbrush. They land with a heavy, hollow clack, swallowed up by the shrubbery. Never to be seen again.

Then Kanda slaps the hind of his horse and she takes off, Alma’s horse following in suite. Kanda and Alma stand there, watching them run for a long, long time. Until the horses disappear beyond the horizon, into the rising sun.

Kanda grabs his pack and throws it over his shoulders. Cracks his neck and looks towards the North. “It’s time to get going.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It belonged to General Yeager.” Kanda says. “His wife’s hunting cabin, I think.”

Around them the wind blows, gravel crunching underfoot as they hike. Alma blinks and cocks his head; he does not know who that is.

“Yeager was a friend of Tiedoll’s.” Kanda elaborates, as if Alma knows who that is either. He nods in agreement anyways. Sometimes, it does not need to be more complicated than that.

They hike as the sun makes its steady ascent through the sky. Occasionally, a cloud will float overhead and block the light, washing out the colours.

Their path’s incline is steep and narrow, winding like a snake through the boulders and trees. Alma has trouble keeping a constant pace, winded and red faced and whining for Kanda to slow down and wait for him please, come on Yuu, just hold up for a second. You know I don’t like to be left behind.

Eventually they both need a break. Alma, tired, _exhausted_ , and Kanda, pink-faced and pretending his breathing hasn’t turned shallow. The path twists and then opens to an overhang on the mountainside, where the trees have thinned out. The ledge juts out like a splinter, and when Alma gets close to the overhang, shale crunching underfoot, he looks out at nothingness. Feels like he and Kanda are the only people left in the entire world.

Below them is only mountains and trees, mountains and trees. The concave dip of a faraway valley and the gentle slope as the horizon disappears at the edge of it all. There’s no towns. No homes. No perfect squares of sectioned-off farmland or trails of smoke as a train weaves along the terrain. No one, nothing.

It’s just Alma and Kanda, alone, together. Finally, at last.

Alma takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and yells. Screams until his voice cracks and the echoes reverberate loud enough to scare birds from the trees. And then he yells and yells and yells some more and Kanda doesn’t stop him because up here, all alone, there’s no reason for them to hide. Alma screams until the last note breaks off and leaves him raw.

And then Alma turns and smiles and, by God’s grace and mercy, Kanda smiles back.

Later, under the shade of a pine tree Alma sits down and tilts his head back, drinking whatever’s left in this canteen. They never did find him a new one in the… uh. The town. With the church. Got a little side tracked, Alma supposes, but now he pays the price as his broken water bottle leaves an uncomfortable wet patch where its been slowly leaking against his thigh.

By now the sun has peaked. It makes for an odd combination of hot air and cold earth: Alma’s face is flushed and sweaty. Humid. But all his extremities feel numb at this altitude. He wonders if everyday will be like this—the starkness between the oppressive heat and sharp cold.

He closes his eyes under the soft blue shade, breathes deep. Relaxes. He sets down his canteen and stretches his legs, joints popping as he draws small circles to loosen his ankles. His feet rub uncomfortably in his shoes, blisters surely swelling by now. Sap sticks to his shirt, the back of his head, and above him, the pine tree rustles in the wind.

When he opens his eyes, Kanda is there, looking out over the edge. Right where Alma stood moments ago. His hands are on his hips, hair pulled up but slowly falling out of the tie. A black strand blows loosely in the mountaintop breeze. Kanda idly tucks it behind his ear.

Alma sighs, feels dreamy, maybe a little muddled from dehydration. He knows Kanda will glare if he catches him staring, so he tries is best to be covert. Pulls a knee to his chest and rests his head on it while he watches.

The sweat on Kanda’s nape paints him in an odd sheen—makes his shirt stick around the edges. The skin is turning a sunburnt pink. Alma can still see a ring of handprints around his neck, and a familiar ugliness curdles in his gut. It grows fiercer and fiercer the longer Alma stares, demanding attention. 

But when Kanda shifts, his shirt stretching low. Alma can see an even row of teeth marks imprinted on the meat of his shoulder and for a moment he’s caught off guard. He stares and stares and the ugliness gradually quiets and instead of yelling and screaming, Alma finds himself smiling. Just a small, private thing.

“Hey.” Alma says after a moment, cheek squished against his knee. Kanda looks over. The same strand of hair from before falls back in front of his face. “When do you think we’ll get there?”

Kanda looks at him, and then back to the horizon for a few moments. Then he leans down, shale crunching under foot, and picks up his pack to swing it over his shoulder. “I don’t know.” He says. “We should get going.” And then he turns back towards the path.

Alma puffs his cheeks, feeling dismissed. He sits up and, in a sudden fit of boldness, reaches his hands out just as Kanda passes by.

“Help me up.” He says, making a grabbing motion.

Kanda pauses. Regards him with mild irritation before his demeanour changes and a knowing smirk slips onto his face. The look makes Alma want to puff his cheeks even more. Kanda leans down and grabs Alma’s outreached hands. He pulls him up and Alma smiles, bright and reflective, as they stand together, nose to nose.

Alma goes to open his mouth and say _ok, now kiss me_ but Kanda beats him to the punch and tilts his head, pressing their dry lips together. They fold so easily against each other, so simply—Alma can’t help but wonder how many times they’ve kissed in the past. How much practice they’ve had in their previous lives to produce such perfect complimentary results.

He marvels at the possibilities.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The cabin is old, small. A pinpoint on the mountainside. It is four wooden walls that Kanda could cross from end to end in ten strides or less, with a stone fireplace scaling the southernmost wall. Sun-bleached bricks jut outwards from the mortar—crumbling in places but not irreparable.

In the front there’s a small wooden door, neatly placed in the middle of two equally small windows. The roof is sloping, caving in at one end. Shingles rotting and pocked with moss. Kanda takes a steady breath, looks it over once more, and thinks—again—not irreparable.

Alma is more dubious.

“It’s a dump.” He says, uncharacteristic in his bluntness.

He and Kanda stand in front of the small cabin (a shack, really, but neither are quite ready to admit that) in an open area, clear of trees. The wind blows, sky overhead gradually greying with clouds. There are a saplings sprouting along the edges of unkempt land. They grow, unbridled, right along the forest line. Occasionally, Kanda sees a flash of lotus flower pink dotting the area. Not much else for them here on this mountaintop, save for a rundown outhouse and land too hard to be tilled and gardened.

“It’s all we get.” Kanda says despite the disappointment building in his stomach. It _is_ a dump—clearly unused for years if not decades, but there’s nowhere left for them to go. Kanda’s just grateful the structure is still standing.

He walks ahead and Alma, who stands with his hands on his hips, chest drawn up, as he chews his lip for a moment. The he sighs and deflates, body sagging dramatically in begrudging acceptance. He jogs to catch up with Kanda and reaches forward to hook his fingers around the hem of Kanda’s shirt, holding it like a leadline.

The front door is locked using an old hinge with a stick through the loop. It’s clearly not for security reasons, moreso to keep the elements and animals out, and it looks old, untouched. The stick looks like its been ingrained with the hinge loop through years of exposure to the elements, and the thought sets Kanda at ease. The windows on either side of the door are broken, glass shattered, but not intentionally. 

No holes from rocks being thrown, Kanda thinks. Probably just wear and tear with age. Behind him, Alma worries the hem of Kanda’s shirt.

“Is it…” Alma breathes. “Is it safe?”

Kanda doesn’t know. Truly, he really can’t say for sure but he supposes that if this cabin isn’t safe then nowhere left for them is.

He removes the wood from the lock and pushes on the splintered wood door. The hinges are old, ancient, rusted along the edges. When it doesn’t open at first shove, Kanda slams the door with his shoulder until the hinges finally unlock.

Inside: dark and musty. Unused and untouched for years, decades.

Regardless, some young, fearful part of Kanda’s brain half expects Exorcists to be hiding in wait, just behind the corner. He guards himself closely, as if Krory or Lau Shimin were about to jump from the shadows and lunge for his neck.

Instead there is no one, nothing. Of course, of course. Just an empty cabin with deer antlers hung on the walls.

Alma peers inside over Kanda’s shoulder. Dusty light illuminates the greying plank walls. To the left there is a small kitchinet: cast iron pots and knives with handles carved from antler bone. An axe hung on the wall. To the right, a fireplace next to a tiny wire-frame bed. It’s empty save for the bedding rolled-up and placed carefully on the cot, as if the owner never expected to be gone for as long as they have been. Glass shards and lotus petals litter entrance way.

Outside and around the back of the cabin there is storm cellar, hidden from view and mostly grown over. Alma and Kanda find it and spend half an hour of plucking weeds and clearing dust until the entrance is exposed. It takes another fifteen minutes and both of their combined strength to heave the weighty doors open. With a final tug, the doors clatter noisily as they land on either side of the entrance, kicking up dirt. Kanda squints and Alma waves his hand, trying to clear the air.

Kanda peers in. It takes a moment for him to adjust to the darkness, eyes straining and Alma curiously peering over his shoulder. Inside the cellar is pink with lotus flowers: a valley of them twisting and growing, creeping along the dirt floor. Thousands and thousands, crowding the small space. Kanda blinks. Rubs his eyes. When he opens them only few hundred flowers remain, dotting the floor in short bursts of colour. 

Kanda blinks, dubious. It’s been getting bad lately, he thinks.

Kanda steps down the stairs. The wood is damp and rotting, bending under his weight but he is careful in case they snap. It’s hard to clearly see inside the cellar, there’s barely any light, but from what Kanda can tell it’s not much bigger than the cabin itself. Four walls, lined from floor to ceiling with shelves dusted in ten years of cobwebs.

The air feels cold and damp. A little stale, maybe, but mostly it feels empty. Lacking. Like the absence of space. The stairs creak as Alma descends and together they begin to sort through the inventory. Candles, rope, bear traps and hunting snares. Glass jars: some of them empty, most of them filled with pickled beets and preserved mushrooms. Candied yams and lemon jam. There is a box of jerky of some kind—venison, Kanda supposes—so old and brittle it snaps like sticks of chalk in his hands.

Lotus flowers grow from the shelves as they work. Kanda ignores them.

It takes a few trips, but eventually they heave everything upstairs. Spread it all out on the rickety kitchenette table and look at what they’re try to survive off of for the next few months. Kanda stares and stares and tries to pick it apart and plan for the future and thinks, okay. This is manageable.

They don’t need much more than this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The trap snaps. A thunderous clap in the silence of the forest.

This time, Alma narrowly avoids his hand getting caught in the drawback. The wire knicks his fingertips, sharp as a threat, but he wrenches them back before any damage is done.

He curses, quiet and frustrated, and tries to set the wire loop again.

It’s hard. Harder than either of them though it would be. Months ago they were soldiers fighting a Holy War between good and evil—near godly in their power. And now what? Now they’re just a couple of runaways hiding on a mountaintop, too inexperienced to do anything right. Can’t even catch a damn rabbit in a snare.

Kanda stands above him, looming but not particularly distracting. He shifts the bow and arrows slung over his shoulder but says nothing at Alma’s disastrous attempts—they both know he’s much worse at this.

On the sixth try, Alma finally catches the wire loop and the trap is set. They leave, quietly, under the crunching of autumn leaves and plumes of frosted air ghosting on their breaths.

Hours later: the arrow pierces cleanly through the doe’s chest. Between the crack of her ribs and straight through her heart. For a second she looks as though she’s about to run but instead she staggers and falls with a deafening thud; it’s the cleanest kill they’ve made so far. Last week they tracked a buck for hours before they lost the trail. Slept hungry and ate squirrel for days after that.

Now they move quick under the blue autumn breeze, early morning sun dappling the forest floor.

Kanda approaches the fallen doe and pulls the hunting knife from his belt. Aims the blade upwards, through her chest, and twists. Her legs jerk and then settle, falling still as glassy eyes stare blankly at the canopy of leaves above. Beady black marbles reflecting Alma’s blank stare back at him.

They make quick work of her, cleaning what they can so they can bring her home and cook. Kanda, with a knife angled upwards, cuts along her sternum. He saws against her breastbone and glides the blade down her stomach. Seamless and precise. Almost clinical. The warmth of her body radiates off of her in waves, hot plumes of steam in the frigid morning air.

Alma watches, silent, curious. Kanda may not have as much practice hunting animals as he does Akuma, but there is skill overlap and the man certainly knows his way around a blade.

Out here in the dead silence of nature, Alma observes the quiet, forgiving beauty of it all. Kanda discarding the knife on the forest floor, sleeves rolled up as he reaches into the doe’s chest cavity and begins the delicate task of cleaning out the organs. Kanda leans in to reach deeper, free hand gliding up and down the doe’s fur, as if to soothe her. The coarse fibres of her hair twisting in lightly bloodied hand. After a moment Kanda jerks, twists his arm and withdraws the doe’s heart, looking plump in his grip.

Kanda stares at it—they both do. This red organ, red as a pomegranate, red as love, cupped in Kanda’s fist.

He holds it, hot and steaming. Cradles it for a moment so delicately that the tenderness catches Alma off guard.

Then, ever so gently, he places it on the ground, overtop of the brittle, dried leaves. Kanda resumes his work and Alma watches him for a little while longer.

 _Oh,_ Alma thinks.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The snow starts falling in the morning while Kanda is out chopping wood.

He’s bent at the waist taking deep, steady breaths. His axehead is stuck halfway through splitting a log of wood when cold wet flakes begin to speckle his nape. Kanda stills and looks upwards to where the clouds have greyed.

He clicks his tongue. Wipes his hands on his pants and when he pulls away, blood streaks the the worn fabric. Kanda blinks. Turns from the clouds and the snow to look down where the calluses on his palm have ripped open and thinks, _huh_. Around him, hundreds of lotus flowers bloom at his feet.

He tears off the hemming of his shirt sleeve, red plaid pink with lotus petals, and wraps his palm. Ties the ends with his teeth and idly watches as a silky petal stains at the corners with blood. Then he raises the axe above his head and deals the final, fatal blow to the log of wood still lodged in the blade. He hits with a sharp, downwards stroke—an easy movement, perfected years ago with Mugen. The log splits satisfyingly down the middle and rolls off the chopping block onto the dirt. There’s a patch of lotus flowers there too, growing in the dust. The log crushes them but Kanda ignores it—pretends they’re not even there, because they aren’t, goddamnit. It’s all just a fucking illusion.

Then he bundles the wood under one arm and swings the axe to rest over his shoulder; rounds the corner to the front of the house in quick, decisive strides. Above, more snow begins to fall. His skin prickles as a cold wind swoops over the mountain range, through the trees, blowing in his hair. Kanda doesn’t even spare a moment to look out and watch the clouds race as a dark, looming storm slowly blankets the mountains below.

Instead Kanda rounds to the cabin entrance and pushes the door open with the tip of his boot. The hinges, flaked with rust, creak ominously as they grind against each other. Light floods through the small doorway and dust particles float in the air as they drift into the stale room.

Kanda blinks against the darkness of the cabin, willing his eyes to adjust as he steps inside. They’ve long boarded up the windows and swept out any broken glass, but the resulting effect is cold and claustrophobic. Dark and small and unwelcoming. Kanda tries to avoid being inside for too long because it starts to feel like a cage. Cabin fever. But now with the days getting colder and colder and it’s harder and harder to spend all his time outside. He finds his circulation has worsened as the weeks pass, fingers going white with numbness in the frigid mountain air. Can never seem to stay warm.

Alma is usually out with him, too. His second shadow. Busy chopping wood or setting traps or being an overall nuisance when he leans against the side of the cabin and pushes Kanda to his knees, hand fisted in Kanda’s hair and _come on Yuu, come on, please?_

Today, however, Alma is stuck inside, trying to unblock whatever’s clogging their chimney. Lately they’ve been having trouble with the fireplace; can’t light anything without the whole damn cabin filling with smoke.

Kanda sees him now, crouched in the mouth of the fireplace. A single, flickering candle is lit at his feet, illuminating the small corner of their small cabin. Strange shapes and peculiar figures twisting in the shadows on the walls.

Alma grunts and strains and looks up the chimney at odd angles as he prods upwards with a pine branch. There are black handprints dotting the brick mantle, charcoal smeared everywhere and lotus blossoms blooming in their wake. Kanda clicks his tongue, thinking about how they will need to clean later.

The floorboards creak, signalling Kanda’s presence as he walks over and places the bundle of wood on their ever growing stack in the corner. Alma looks up from the fireplace and watches as Kanda rearranges the logs neatly and with care, stacking them strategically on top of each other. By now their great pile of wood nearly as tall as Kanda himself: they’ve been building it in anticipation for winter, adding to it steadily each day. Kanda had been slightly impressed by it originally, but now with the snow he begins to worry there won’t be enough.

When he’s done he turns and looks to Alma. Tells him, “It’s snowing.” And then, after a moment, “We’re running out of time.”

Alma stares up at him from the fireplace and blinks. The whites of his eyes look unnatural against the black smudges of charcoal along his face. Below his nose is particularly dark, as if it had just been bleeding or perhaps running wet with snot. “Okay.” Alma nods. “Okay.” Because, really, what else is there for him to say?

And then it goes quiet. And they look at each other. And the candle beside the fireplace flickers and pops and the wind outside begins to howl. Steadily, growing louder and louder, blowing through all the little cracks in the cabin and making a whistling sound that fills the empty space between them.

They stare at each other for a second longer before Kanda turns away. He slings the axe off his shoulder and props it against the wall, next to their bed. Out of habit he likes to keep it close, just in case. Just in case.

Then Kanda crosses the other side of their small cabin and grabs a tattered cloth, dipping it into the small basin of water they keep in the kitchen. It’s ice cold. Bitterly cold. Soaks through the bandage wrapped around Kanda’s palm and turns his fingers numb.

They can’t heat anything until the chimney gets cleared out, which is troublesome for drinking water, but at this point there’s nothing they can do. It’s too windy up on top of the damn mountain to light a fire outside and neither of them particularly want to die from smoke inhalation, so for now there’s no choice. They’re stuck drinking and bathing in frigid, dirty water.

Kanda scowls. Wrings out the cloth. He misses drinking tea. Misses the little luxuries. Even on missions—after days of cutting through Akuma after Akuma, all the blood and the guts—there was always time for tea and a moment of silence back at camp. A quiet hour where he could sit in front of the fire, drinking from a warm mug as he stared into in the flames and thought of nothing at all. The serenity of a blank mind and a good, hot drink.

Creature comforts, Kanda supposes.

He walks back to Alma and holds the wet cloth out for him. “Thanks.” Alma says; grabs it and wipes his face. It’s black within seconds—just smears the charcoal around, really, but Alma doesn’t seem to notice.

“I think it was an old bird’s nest stuck up there,” Alma says, peering back at the fireplace. ”Bunch of dead, dried-up chicks.” He sniffs, wiping his hands with the cloth. “‘S kinda sad. I think they’ve been stuck up there for a long time. Just… forgotten about.” He fiddles with the loose ends of the cloth, turning it over in his hands. “But I’m pretty sure I got most of them out, so we should be good.”

Kanda sits on the bed and watches him, candlelight casting the cabin in a low, hazy glow. Lotus flowers bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom, painting all four walls in varying shades of pink. His vision feels like it’s swimming from colour saturation.

Alma stands and goes to the basin to finish cleaning off. They’ll have to haul more water up from the river soon—will need to think about stocking up before everything freezes over. Kanda rubs his temples, feeling exhausted at the mere thought. Every damn day feels like a struggle for survival up here, always planning. Saving. It’s so damn tiring always trying to stay one step ahead of everything.

Sometimes Kanda thinks it would have been easier just to stay with civilization. To live alongside it, in the shadows. Maybe they could have stayed close to cities and skimmed off the edges, just like before. He wonders if it was a mistake coming up here in the first place—if he really, truly wants to die alone with Alma up on some barren mountain top. Frozen to death in an abandoned hunting cabin.

The thought sits heavy and low in his stomach, repeating like a mantra until Alma comes back and jostles Kanda from his brooding. He sits across from Kanda on the bed, still fussing with the cloth; wipes at his forearms and something catches Kanda’s eye, bright in the shadow of the candlelight.

Kanda blinks.

“That still hasn’t healed?” Kanda nods to the stark, blistering mark on Alma’s arm. Yet another testimony of their struggles: from when Alma tried to build a fire the first week they got here. 

Kanda stares at it, as if he’ll uncover some hidden meaning in such an innocuous mark. It’s been over a month and a half, but the blistering still looks fresh, as if he’d been burnt just days before.

Alma’s cheeks puff, eyebrows knitting. He crosses his arms protectively and sits back. “No.” He says, defensively.

“It’s been weeks,” Kanda says.

“So?”

“So it should have healed by now.”

Alma glares at him, as if this is some personal attack against his character. “I mean…!” Alma’s voice raises a few octaves. “Your neck hasn’t healed either and it’s been like, months, so…!” He points his finger in accusation, holding his burnt arm protectively close.

Kanda scowls, ready for an argument when suddenly he stops. Blinks. Opens his mouth and closes it, processing what Alma just said.

His hand weaves upwards, touching the skin of his Adam’s apple where a patchy layer of stubble has grown over. There’s no mirrors in the cabin, no way he could have known his neck is still a blotchy red and yellow from the attack far too many months ago. Alma never said anything, andnow Kanda frowns, deep and monstrous. His heart rate jumps a tick.

He stands and the floorboards wheeze under his weight. Alma shifts nervously on the bed, springs creaking and twisting and moaning and banging under even the most delicate of pressure. The whole damn cabin is falling apart, crumbling at the seams, and now Kanda’s beginning to wonder if they are too. He doesn’t understand— _why_ is his neck still bruised? He doesn’t understand. He gets angry. He doesn’t _understand._

Around him, hundreds of thousands of lotus flowers bloom. Slowly unfurling and reaching up towards him.

Later that night Alma presses Kanda into the creaking old bed frame and takes him into his mouth. The sight is unreal—Alma flushed with his lips wrapped around Kanda’s cock, tonguing the head and fondling his balls. The sounds are lewd and embarrassing and Kanda will never admit that the wet slurping turns his ears red.

His head tilts back and he focuses on the planks of wood lining the ceiling, mismatched colours where water has leaked and stained through. Lotus flowers bloom through the cracks in the splinters. Alma’s teeth graze against Kanda’s shaft and Kanda jolts. He looks down but Alma is clearly busy, not even bothering to catch his eye.

He breathes out a slow, controlled exhale.

The his fingers twist in the sheets, straining the fabric as Alma’s teeth catch again. He’s too caught up in the feeling to figure out if it’s a threat or just inexperience, and Alma reaches out to drag Kanda’s hand from the sheets to his hair. Then he swallows deep, presses his nose to Kanda’s skin. Kanda groans; cants his hips and feels the dangerous scrape of teeth again. Alma pulls back and smiles, cheeky.

Alma’s lips are wet and flushed and looking so lewd that Kanda has to resist the urge to shove his fingers between them. Alma pulls a strand of hair behind his ear, jacks off Kanda in quick succession before leaning back down, eyes closed. Behind him, lotus flowers paint the room pink and white. 

Alma’s hair has gotten so long now, Kanda thinks as he ignores the flowers and runs a hand through the tangle of black strands. Twists the ends around his fingers. Thinks that Alma really is starting to look like a girl.

Alma swallows again and Kanda groans, toes curling. All the sinewy muscle in his thighs tenses as Alma bobs his head, swirls his tongue. Rises for a breath and tugs a little at Kanda’s foreskin caught between his teeth. It stretches and snaps back, not painful but shocking, electric, in a way that Kanda feels at the very base of his spine. Then Alma soothes him by tonguing the head, pressing into Kanda’s slit, and Kanda feels himself slipping. 

Alma gives a few more good-natured tugs at Kanda’s shaft, and from this angle Kanda can see the molted blistering on Alma’s skin.

Alma swallows him down once more and Kanda looks out at the lotus blossoms growing on every surface of the cabin. Sprouting out of the walls and through the floorboards. Floating in their little basin of water and curling through the rusted bedsprings. Everywhere he looks is pink, pink, pink with lotus blossoms.

Alma licks and sucks and Kanda comes in his mouth, sudden and clench-jawed and staring at the single pink lotus blossom that grows from the burn on Alma’s arm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Three fingernails fall off in a week. Their bodies have begun to decay before winter has even settled.

It started so small, as all insidious things do: cuts unwilling to heal, bruises unfading. Now they have begun to barely touch each other out of fear one of them will crumble apart.

Five days ago, Kanda’s hair began to fall out as Alma combed his fingers through it — thick black ribbons folding neatly on the wooden floor. Alma gasped when the first clump came out. All those dead strands, brittle in texture, tangled like cobwebs around his fingers.

Two days after that, Kanda began to cough up blood and Alma realized neither of them could walk along the mountain trails to check their traps without getting desperately, mind numbingly exhausted. _Oh,_ Alma thinks as he watches Kanda spit blood into a pail. He holds a cloth out for Kanda to wipe his mouth; idly rubs at his nose where it’s red and crusted from perpetual nose bleeds. _This is how it ends._

Yesterday, Alma’s wrist nearly snapped in half as he put a log on the fire. Spent an hour crying on the floor, not from pain but from the despair of the inevitable. _After all this,_ Alma had said, over and over, a mantra of anger and frustration and terrible despair. _After all this._

Kanda knelt beside him, hovering, unsure whether his touch would do more harm than good. Later, he splintered Alma’s wrist and wrapped it in cloth from a torn shirt; kissed his knuckles so gently that Alma nearly fell apart right then and there.

They’re laying together on the rug by the fire now, the heat unable to warm either of them no matter how many logs they pile on it. They kiss, as slow as the march of time, and Alma marvels at the tenderness of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind he notices the taste of blood and idly wonders if it’s his or Kanda’s.

Eventually even kissing requires too much energy and they both have to settle down. Alma is tired, just so damn exhausted. He wants to curl under the covers of their bed with Kanda pressed to his side and go to sleep, but he’s too worried one of them won’t wake up so he doesn’t even dare to suggest it. Instead he sits cross-legged next to Kanda and stares at him. Kanda’s eyes are closed, shoulders drooping to the too-slow rasps of his breathing. He looks so tired.

Alma wants to commit everything about Kanda to memory while he still has the chance; never wants to forget what he looks like again. The slope of his forehead and the cut of his jawline and the contours of his cheekbones. The little birthmark on hidden by his hairline and the patchy stubble slowly climbing up his neck, along his jaw. He doesn’t want to lose a single detail ever again.

Alma exhales and leans his head back a little, eyes slipping closed in faux-prayer. He hopes that if there is a God out there, that He watches over them just this once. Listens to Alma with His infinite mercy just this one time.

Dear God, dear God, please just let Alma remember him when this is all over. Dear God, dear God, please just let this last a little longer.

They sit in silence. The fire pops. Alma opens his eyes when he feels himself start to drift off, says, “How many winters do you think we’ll get to have up here?”

Kanda doesn’t move from where he sits. His eyes don’t bother to open. His face looks so worn, skin cracking along the edges like old porcelain. Overused and no longer the fine china he once was. He looks like he’s aged by decades, centuries; a millennia of struggling finally coming to an end.

“We probably won't make it to spring.” Kanda says, eventually, voice uncharacteristically soft. Now, the dream is ending.

Alma knows this already. Of course he does. Of course. Still, he only musters a gentle, _oh._

He lays down and rests his head on Kanda’s thigh, suddenly finding himself very tired.

Outside, the snow continues to fall and the world is very quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: strangulation & assault, slight dub-con, unhealthy character dynamics, animal death, implied major character death(s), pretentious writing
> 
>    
>  _kicking myself, i know that you're tough_  
>  _yeah we can pretend we're that_  
>  _gotta see how, you gotta leave that_
> 
>   _one day i'll be fine with that_  
>  _you don't leave me now_  
>  _do you love me back?_
> 
>  
> 
> [one day by sharon van etten](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m3Ly2A9mbo)


End file.
